Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

==Campaign for repeal of the Union==
===The meaning of Repeal===
O'Connell's call for a [[Repeal (Ireland)|repeal]] of the [[Acts of Union 1800|1800 Act of Union]], and for a restoration of the [[Kingdom of Ireland]] under the [[Constitution of 1782]], which he linked (as he had with emancipation) to a multitude of popular grievances, may have been less a considered constitutional proposal than "an invitation to treat".<ref name=":12" />{{rp|309}}

The legislative independence won by [[Grattan's Parliament]] in 1782 had left executive power in the hands of the London-appointed Dublin Castle administration. In declining to stand as a Repeal candidate, [[Thomas Moore]] (Ireland's [[national bard]])<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Love |first1=Timothy |title=Gender and the Nationalistic Ballad: Thomas Davis, Thomas Moore, and Their Songs |journal=New Hibernia Review |date=Spring 2017 |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=76 |doi=10.1353/nhr.2017.0005 |publisher=Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas |s2cid=149071105 |language=en |issn=1534-5815 |id=660979}}</ref> objected that with a Catholic Parliament in Dublin, "which they would be sure to have out and out", this would be an arrangement impossible to sustain. Separation from Great Britain was its "certain consequence", so that Repeal was a practical policy only if (in the spirit of the United Irishmen) Catholics were again "joined by the dissenters"{{snd}}the Presbyterians of the North.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings">{{cite book|last1=Moore|first1=Thomas|title=Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford|date=1993|publisher=Athol Books|isbn=0850340675|location=Belfast|pages=243–244}}</ref>{{rp|243–244}}

But for O'Connell, the historian R.F. Foster suggests that "the trick was never to define what the Repeal meant{{snd}}or did not mean". It was an "emotional claim", an "ideal", with which "to force the British into offering ''something''".<ref name=":12">{{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=R.F. |title=Modern Ireland 1600–1972 |date=1988 |publisher=Allen Lane |isbn=0713990104 |location=London |page=}}</ref>{{rp|308}}

==="Testing" the Union===
O'Connell did prepare the ground for the [[Home Rule]] compromise, eventually negotiated between [[Irish Parliamentary Party|Irish-nationalists]] and [[Liberal Party (UK)|British Liberals]] from the 1880s to 1914. He declared that while he would "never ask for or work" for anything less than an independent legislature, he would accept a "subordinate parliament" as "an instalment".<ref name=":11">Quoted in {{cite book |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=Ireland: The Union and its Aftermath|date=1977 |location=London |isbn=978-1-900621-81-6|pages=58}}</ref> But for the predecessors to [[William Ewart Gladstone|Gladstone's]] Liberals, [[William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne|Lord Melbourne's]] [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]], with whom O'Connell sought accommodation in the 1830s, even an Irish legislature devolved ''within'' the United Kingdom was a step too far.

Having assisted Melbourne, through an informal understanding (the [[Lichfield House Compact]]), to a government majority, in 1835 O'Connell suggested he might be willing to give up the project of an Irish parliament altogether. He declared his willingness to "test" the Union: <blockquote>The people of Ireland are ready to become a portion of the empire, provided they be made so in reality and not in name alone; they are ready to become a kind of West Britons if made so in benefits and in justice, but if not, we are Irishmen again.</blockquote> Underscoring the qualifying clause{{snd}}"if not we are Irishmen again"{{snd}}historian J.C. Beckett proposes that the change was less than it may have appeared. Under the pressure of a choice between "effectual union or no union", O'Connell was seeking to maximise the scope of shorter-term, interim, reforms.<ref name="Foster">{{cite book |last1=Beckett |first1=J.C. |title=The Making of Modern Ireland 1603–1923 |date=1966 |publisher=Faber and Faber |isbn=0571092675 |location=London |pages=}}</ref>

O'Connell failed to stall the application to Ireland of the new [[Poor Law Amendment Act 1834|English Poor Law system]] of [[Workhouse]]s in 1837, the prospect of which, as de Tocqueville found, was broadly dreaded in Ireland.<ref name=":6" />{{rp|119–124}}As an alternative to [[outdoor relief]], the Workhouses made it easier for landlords to clear their estates in favour of larger English-export-oriented farms.<ref name="Foster" /> O'Connell's objection was that the poor-law charge would ruin a great proportion of landowners, further reducing the wage fund and increasing the poverty of the country. That poverty was due not to exorbitant rents (which O'Connell compared to those in England without reference to Irish practice of sub-letting), but to laws{{snd}}the [[Penal Laws against Irish Catholics|Penal Laws]] of the previous century{{snd}}that had prohibited the Catholic majority from acquiring education and property. The responsibility for its relief was therefore the government's.<ref>Lecky, W. E. H. (1912). ''Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland Vol II, Daniel O'Connell.'' Longman, Green & Co. pp. 175–177.</ref> To defray the cost O'Connell urged, in vain, a tax on [[Absentee landlord|''absentee'' rents]].<ref>Daniel O'Connell, speech from April 28, 1837, quoted in M. F. Cusack (2010),''The Speeches and Public Letters of the Liberator'', vol. 1, BibloBazaar, {{ISBN|978-1140123552}}</ref>

But as regards the general conduct of the [[Dublin Castle administration]] under the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]], Beckett concludes that "O'Connell had reason to be satisfied, and "the more so as his influence carried great weight in the making of appointments". Reforms opened the police and judiciary to greater Catholic recruitment, and measures were taken to reduce the provocations and influence of the pro-Ascendancy [[Orange Order]].<ref name="Foster" />

In 1840 [[Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840|municipal government was reconstructed]] on the basis of a rate-payer franchise. In 1841, O'Connell became the first Roman Catholic [[Lord Mayor of Dublin]] since [[Terence MacDermott]] in the reign of [[James II of England|James II]]. In breaking the Protestant monopoly of corporate rights, he was confident that town councils would become a "school for teaching the science of peaceful political agitation".<ref name=":1" /> But the measure was less liberal than municipal reform in England, and left the majority of the population to continue under the landlord-controlled Grand Jury system of county government. In view of [[Thomas Francis Meagher]], in return for damping down Repeal agitation, a "corrupt gang of politicians who fawned on O'Connell" were being allowed an extensive system of political patronage.<ref>Griffith, Arthur (1916). ''Meagher of the Sword: Speeches of Thomas Francis Meagher in Ireland 1846–1848''. Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, Ltd. p. vii</ref> The Irish people were being "purchased back into factious vassalage."<ref>O'Sullivan, T. F. (1945). ''Young Ireland''. The Kerryman Ltd. p. 195</ref>

===Northern opposition===
[[File:The Repealer Repulsed.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The Repealer Repulsed, Belfast 1841]]
Conscious of their minority position in Ulster, Catholic support for O'Connell in the north was "muted". [[William Crolly]], [[Bishop of Down and Connor]] and later [[Archbishop of Armagh (Catholic)|Archbishop of Armagh]], was ambivalent, anxious lest clerical support for Repeal disrupt his "carefully nurtured relationship with Belfast's liberal Presbyterians".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Elliott |first=Marianne |title=The Catholics of Ulster, a History |publisher=Allen Lane, Penguin Press |year=2000 |isbn=0713994649 |location=London |pages=272}}</ref>

O'Connell "treasured his few Protestant Repealers". But to many of his contemporaries, he appeared "ignorant" of the Protestant (largely [[Presbyterian Church in Ireland|Presbyterian]]) majority society of the north-east, [[Ulster]], counties.<ref name="Hoppen" /><ref name=":12" />{{rp|317}} Here there was already premonition of future [[Partition of Ireland|Partition]]. While protesting that its readers wished only to preserve the Union, in 1843 Belfast's leading paper, the ''[[Northern Whig]]'', proposed that if differences in "race" and "interests" argue for Ireland's separation from Great Britain then "the Northern 'aliens', holders of 'foreign heresies' (as O'Connell says they are)" should have their own "distinct kingdom", Belfast as its capital.<ref>''The Northern Whig'', editorial "Repeal: Petition in favour of the Union, or 'the Erection of the Kingdom of the North of Ireland", 17 October 1843, cited in British and Irish Communist Organisation (1973) ''Ulster As It Is: a Review of the Development of the Catholic/Protestant Political Conflict between Catholic Emancipation and the Home Rule Bill'', Athol Books, Belfast. pp. 21–22</ref>

O'Connell seemed implicitly to concede the separateness of the Protestant North. He spoke "invading" Ulster to rescue "our Persecuted Brethren in the North". In the event, and in the face of the hostile crowds that disrupted his one foray to Belfast in 1841 ("the Repealer repulsed!"), he "tended to leave Ulster strictly alone".<ref name=":12" />{{rp|306}} The northern Dissenters were not redeemed, in his view, by their record as United Irishmen. "The Presbyterians", he remarked, "fought badly at [[Battle of Ballynahinch|Ballynahinch]] ... and as soon as the fellows were checked they became furious Orangemen".<ref>{{Cite book |last=O'Neill Daunt |first=William J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UyMEAAAAQAAJ |title=Personal Recollections of the Late Daniel O'Connell MP. Vol II |publisher=Chapman and Hall |year=1848 |location=London |pages=7}}</ref>

Perhaps persuaded by their presence through much of the south as but a thin layer of officials, landowners and their agents, O'Connell proposed that Protestants did not have the staying power of true "religionists". Their ecclesiastical dissent (and not alone their [[unionism in Ireland|unionism]]) was a function, he argued, of political privilege. To Dr [[Paul Cullen (cardinal)|Paul Cullen]] (the future [[Cardinal (Catholic Church)|Cardinal]] and Catholic [[Primacy of Ireland|Primate of Ireland]]) in Rome, O'Connell wrote:<blockquote>The Protestants of Ireland... are political Protestants, that is, Protestants by reason of their participation in political power... If the Union were repealed and the exclusive system abolished, the great mass of the Protestant community would with little delay melt into the overwhelming majority of the Irish nation. Protestantism would not survive the Repeal ten years.<ref>O'Connell to Cullen, 9 May 1842. Maurice O'Connell (ed.) ''The Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell''. Shannon: Irish University Press, 8 vols.), vol. vii, p. 158</ref></blockquote>

=== Exchange with Disraeli ===
In April 1835, O'Connell sparred with [[Benjamin Disraeli]] who, while campaigning as an English [[by-election]], had reportedly branded the Irish leader "an incendiary and a traitor". According to the extensive coverage of his response in ''[[The Times]],''<ref>"Mr. D'Israeli and Mr. O'Connell", ''The Times'', 6 May 1835, p. 3</ref> having drawn attention to Disraeli's "Jewish origin", in speech in Dublin O'Connell suggested that the young [[Peelite]] had, not only the "perfidy, selfishness, depravity, and want of principle" typical of a would-be [[Tory]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]], but also the qualities of "the [[impenitent thief]] on the cross . . . the blasphemous robber".<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Rodden |first=John |date=2022 |title=The Duel between 'Danny' and 'Dizzy' |url=https://historyireland.com/the-duel-between-danny-and-dizzy/ |access-date=2025-01-04 |website=History Ireland |language=en-US}}</ref>

Notwithstanding that O'Connell had publicly criticised [[Pope Gregory XVI]]'s treatment of Jews in the [[Papal States]] and bragged of Ireland being the "only Christian country ... unsullied by any one act of persecution of the Jews",<ref name="Bew and Maune2">{{cite news |last1=Bew |first1=Paul |last2=Maune |first2=Patrick |date=July 2020 |title=The Great Advocate |url=https://www.drb.ie/essays/the-great-advocate |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804104421/http://www.drb.ie/essays/the-great-advocate |archive-date=4 August 2020 |access-date=7 August 2020 |journal=Dublin Review of Books |issue=124}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hyman |first1=Louis |title=The Jews of Ireland: From Earliest Times to the Year 1910 |date=1972 |publisher=Irish University Press |page=114}}</ref> his comments elicited charges of anti-Jewish slander.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Blake |first=Robert |url= |title=Disraeli |date=2012 |publisher=Faber & Faber |isbn=978-0-571-28755-0 |pages=124–126 |language=en}}</ref>

Disraeli demanded "satisfaction". As it was known that O'Connell had forsworn duelling following the death of D'Esterre, the challenge went to his duelling son, and fellow MP, [[Morgan O'Connell]]. Morgan, however, declined responsibility for his father's controversial remarks.<ref>Boase, George Clement (1895). "O'Connell, Morgan". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 41. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 400-401</ref>

The future [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] Prime Minister did not prevail in his by-election against the incumbent Whig, but the dispute (which Disraeli recounted throughout his career)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wohl |first=Anthony S. |date=1995 |title="Dizzi-Ben-Dizzi": Disraeli as Alien |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/175985 |journal=Journal of British Studies |volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=(375–411) 379 |issn=0021-9371}}</ref> propelled him for the first time to general public notice.<ref name=":8" />

===Conflict with the Chartists and trade unions===
In 1842, all eighteen of O'Connell's parliamentary "tail" at Westminster voted in favour of the [[Chartism|Chartist]] petition which, along with its radical democratic demands, included Repeal.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford |last=Pickering |first=Paul |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=1991|location=Basingstoke|isbn=978-0-230-37648-9|page=251, n.45}}</ref> Their leader had declared himself "a decided advocate of universal suffrage" because no one could properly fix "where the line should be drawn" between servitude and liberty.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|136}} But the Chartists in England, and in their much smaller number in Ireland, were also to accuse O'Connell of being unreliable and opportunistic in his drive to secure Whig favour.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=Matthew |title=Daniel O'Connell, repeal and Chartism in the age of Atlantic revolutions |journal=The Journal of Modern History |year=2018 |volume=90 |issue=1 |pages=1–39 |doi=10.1086/695882 |s2cid=157079784 |url=http://shura.shu.ac.uk/15673/3/Roberts%20-%20Daniel%20O%27Connell%20repeal%20and%20chartism%20%28AM%29.pdf |access-date=22 August 2020 |archive-date=28 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428182331/http://shura.shu.ac.uk/15673/3/Roberts%20-%20Daniel%20O%27Connell%20repeal%20and%20chartism%20%28AM%29.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

When in 1831 workers in the Dublin [[Trade union|trades]] created their own political association, O'Connell moved to pack it. The Trades Political Union (TPU) was swamped by 5,000 mostly middle-class repealers<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Reaney|first=Bernard|date=1984|title=Irish Chartists in Britain and Ireland: rescuing the rank and file|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23195891|journal=Saothar|volume=10|pages=(94–103), 97–98|jstor=23195891 |issn=0332-1169}}</ref> who by acclaim carried O'Connell's resolution calling for the suppression of all secret and illegal combinations, particularly those "manifested among the labouring classes".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Holohan|first=Patrick|date=1975|title=Daniel O'Connell and the Dublin Trades: A Collision, 1837/8|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23194159|journal=Saothar|volume=1|issue=1|pages=1–17|jstor=23194159 |issn=0332-1169}}</ref> When in 1841 the Chartists held the first meeting of the Irish Universal Suffrage Association (IUSA), a TPU mob broke it up, and O'Connell denounced the association's secretary, Peter Brophy as an Orangeman. From England, where the Irish-born leader of Chartism [[Feargus O'Connor|Fergus O'Connor]] had joined the IUSA in solidarity, Brophy denounced O'Connell in turn as the "enemy of the unrepresented classes".<ref name=":2" />

Ostensibly, O'Connell's objection to labour and Chartist agitation was the resort to intimidation and violence.{{sfn|Lecky|1912|p=185}} But his flexibility with regard to principle alienated not only working-class militants but also middle-class reformers. There was also consternation when, in 1836 O'Connell voted for an amending bill that would have {{em|excluded}} 12-year-olds from the protection of shorter hours under the [[Factory Act 1833|Factories Regulation Act]]. While it is clear that O'Connell's only purpose was to delay the return of a Tory ministry (in 1832 and 1833 he had intervened four times to raise the age, and was to do so again in 1839), his reputation suffered.<ref name=":5" />{{rp|81–82}}

[[Karl Marx]] was of the view that O'Connell "always incited the Irish against the Chartists", and did so "because they too had inscribed Repeal on their banner". To O'Connell, he ascribed the fear that, drawing together national and democratic demands, the Chartist influence might induce his following to break "the established habit of electing place-hunting lawyers" and of seeking "to impress English Liberals".<ref name=":02">Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels (10 December 1869) reprinted in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/ireland/ireland.pdf ''Ireland and the Irish Question''], New York, International Publishers, 1972, p. 397.</ref>

===The renewal of the campaign===
In April 1840, when it became clear that the Whigs would lose office, O'Connell relaunched the [[Repeal Association]], and published a series of addresses criticising government policy and attacking the Union.

The "people", the great numbers of tenant farmers, small-town traders and journeymen, whom O'Connell had rallied to the cause of [[Catholic Emancipation|Emancipation]], did not similarly respond to his lead on the more abstract proposition of Repeal;<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=Thomas N|date=1953|title=Nationalism and the Irish Peasant: 1800–1848|journal=Review of Politics|volume=XV|pages=435–439}}</ref> neither did the Catholic [[gentry]] or middle classes. Many appeared content to explore the avenues for advancement emancipation had opened. The suspicion, in any case, was that O'Connell's purpose in returning to the constitutional question was merely to disconcert the incoming [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservatives]] (under his old enemy Sir [[Robert Peel]]) and to hasten the Whigs return<ref name="Moody2">{{cite journal |last1=Moody |first1=T. W. |date=Autumn 1966 |title=Thomas Davis and the Irish nation |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23039825 |url-status=live |journal=Hermathena |issue=103 |pages=11–12 |jstor=23039825 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922231610/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23039825?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A5672e823f379bee9e2566b59f8bae282&seq=7#page_scan_tab_contents |archive-date=22 September 2021 |access-date=3 September 2020}}</ref> (entirely the view of [[Friedrich Engels]]: the only purpose of Repeal for the "old fox" was "embarrass the Tory Ministers" and to put his friends back into office).<ref>Friedrich Engels (1843) "Letter from London", ''Schweizerischer Republikaner'' No. 51, June 27, reprinted in [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/ireland/ireland.pdf Marx and Engels (1971)], pp. 43, 45.</ref>

Meanwhile, as a body, Protestants remained opposed to a restoration of a parliament the prerogatives of which they had once championed. The Presbyterians in the north were persuaded that the Union was both the occasion for their relative prosperity and a guarantee of their liberty.<ref>{{cite book |last=Connolly |first=S.J. |editor-last=Connolly |editor-first=S.J. |title=Belfast 400: People, Place and History |publisher=Liverpool University Press |date=2012 |chapter=Chapter 5: Improving Town, 1750–1820 |isbn=978-1-84631-635-7}}</ref>

In the [[1841 United Kingdom general election|June–July 1841 Westminster elections]], Repeal candidates lost half their seats. In a contest marked by the boycott of Guinness as "Protestant porter", O'Connell's son John, a brewer of O'Connell's Ale,<ref name="sim">{{Cite web|url=http://www.simtec.us/dublinbrewing/history.html|title=History of Brewing in Dublin|publisher=Dublin Brewing Co.|via=simtec.us|access-date=25 March 2010|archive-date=24 March 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100324225423/http://simtec.us/dublinbrewing/history.html|url-status=live}}</ref> failed to hold his father's Dublin seat.

'''The "Repeal election" 1841''' 
(Source: [[1841 United Kingdom general election|''1841 United Kingdom general election--Ireland'']])
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! colspan=2 |Party 
! Candidates
! Unopposed
! Seats
! Seats change
! Votes
! %
! % change
|-
| {{Party name with colour|Whigs (British political party)}}
| align=right| 55
| align=right| 30
| align=right| 42
| align=right| 
| align=right| 17,128
| align=right| 35.1
| align=right| 
|-
| {{Party name with colour|Irish Conservative Party}}
| align=right| 59
| align=right| 27
| align=right| 41
| align=right| 
| align=right| 19,664
| align=right| 40.1
| align=right| 
|-
| {{Party name with colour|Repeal Association}}
| align=right| 22
| align=right| 12
| align=right| 20
| align=right| 
| align=right| 12,537
| align=right| 24.8
| align=right| 
|- class="sortbottom" style="font-weight: bold; text-align: right; background: #f2f2f2;"
! colspan="2" style="padding-left: 1.5em; text-align: left;" | Total
| align=right| 136
| align=right| 69
| align=right| 103
| align=right| 
| align=right| 49,329
| align=right| 100
| align=right|
|} ''Population of Ireland, [[Irish population analysis|1841 Census]]: 8.18 million.''

Against a background of growing economic distress, O'Connell was nonetheless buoyed by [[John MacHale|Archbishop John McHale's]] endorsement of legislative independence.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/DFI632Y7XRL2ETRTA66XK7SNKRXR2MC28HMD7S2SVP9ACSGT8Y-00080?func=full-set-set&set_number=000371&set_entry=000001&format=999 |title=British Library Catalogue entry |access-date=4 August 2020 |archive-date=22 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922231621/http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=BLVU1 |url-status=live }}</ref> Opinion among all classes was also influenced from October 1842 by [[Charles Gavan Duffy|Gavan Duffy]]'s new weekly [[The Nation (Irish newspaper)|''The Nation'']]. Read in Repeal Reading Rooms and passed from hand to hand, its mix of vigorous editorials, historical articles and verse, may have reached as many as a quarter of a million readers.<ref name=":12" />{{rp|311}}

Breaking out of the very narrow basis for electoral politics (the vote was not restored to the forty-shilling freeholder until 1885), O'Connell initiated a new series of "monster meetings". These were damaging to the prestige of the government, not only at home but abroad. O'Connell was becoming a figure of international renown, with large and sympathetic audiences in the United States, France and Germany.<ref name=":10" /> The [[Second Peel ministry|Conservative government of Robert Peel]] considered repression, but hesitated, unwilling to tackle the [[Anti-Corn Law League]] which was copying O'Connell's methods in England.<ref name="Foster" />{{rp|325–326}} Assuring his supporters that Britain must soon surrender, O'Connell declared 1843 "the repeal year".

===Tara and Clontarf 1843===
[[File:O'Connell crowned at Tara, 1843.gif|thumb|[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]], August. 26, 1843. Irish peasants pay homage to their "King" on the Hill of Tara. O'Connell enthroned upon the devil, with his foot on the British Constitution.|left]]

At the [[Hill of Tara]] (by tradition the inaugural seat of the [[High Kings of Ireland]]), on the [[Assumption of Mary|feast-day of the Assumption]], 15 August 1843, O'Connell gathered a crowd estimated, in the hostile reporting of [[The Times]], as close to one million. It took O'Connell's carriage two hours to proceed through the throng, accompanied by a harpist playing Thomas Moore's "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls".<ref name="Bardon">{{cite book |last1=Bardon |first1=Jonathan |title=A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes |date=2008 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |location=Dublin |isbn=9780717146499 |pages=362–363}}</ref>

O'Connell planned to close the campaign on 8 October 1843 with an even larger demonstration at [[Clontarf, Dublin|Clontarf]], on the outskirts of Dublin. As the site of [[Brian Boru]]'s famous [[Battle of Clontarf|victory over the Danes]] in 1014, it resonated with O'Connell's increasingly militant rhetoric: "the time is coming", he had been telling his supporters, when "you may have the alternative to live as slaves or to die as freemen". Beckett suggests "O'Connell mistook the temper of the government", never expecting that "his defiance would be put to the test". When it was{{snd}}when troops occupied Clontarf{{snd}}O'Connell submitted at once. He cancelled the rally and sent out messengers to turn back the approaching crowds.<ref name="Foster" />{{rp|323–327}}

[[File:Triumphal Chariot Daniel O'Conell gf 120.jpg|thumb|O'Connell's "chariot", now on display in [[Derrynane House]] ]]O'Connell was applauded by the Church, his more moderate supporters and English sympathisers. But many of the movement rank and file who had been fired by his defiant rhetoric were disillusioned. His loss of prestige might have been greater had the government not prosecuted O'Connell and his son John for conspiracy. Hailed as martyr, O'Connell was imprisoned at the [[Griffith Barracks|Richmond Bridewell]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.griffith.ie/locations/dublin-main-campus/dublin-campus-history/1813-1892|title=The Richmond Bridewell 1813–1892|date=16 July 2014 |publisher=Griffith College|accessdate=16 July 2024}}</ref>

When released after three months, the charges quashed on appeal to the [[House of Lords]], O'Connell was paraded in triumph through Dublin on a gilded chariot.<ref>{{cite news |last1=O'Toole |first1=Fintan |title=A history of Ireland in 100 objects |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/a-history-of-ireland-in-100-objects-1.535250 |access-date=6 August 2020 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=11 August 2012 |archive-date=2 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202232832/https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/a-history-of-ireland-in-100-objects-1.535250 |url-status=live }}</ref> But, approaching seventy years of age, O'Connell never fully recovered his former stature or confidence.<ref name="Foster" />{{rp|326–327}} Having deprived himself of his most potent weapon, the monster meeting, and with his health failing, O'Connell had no plan and ranks of the Repeal Association began to divide.<ref name="Boylan1998" />